6. Negotiating the wall

I met Karl a few days later. A Kiwi-Caucasian lad from Canterbury, like myself; he was tall and slim with a scraggily blonde beard and a calm smile, all a little less like myself. His blue bucket hat protected his head from the sun and his assured stature was a comforting influence to my slightly less assured self. He was backpacking his way through Asia in preparation for his flight to Europe where he was planning to grow flowers in the Netherlands.

Early one morning, Jan, Karl, myself, and Miranda, Karl’s friend from his time at Waikato University, journeyed to Huanghua, a small village to the northeast of Beijing, for a much more interesting Great Wall experience.

Miranda, being from Beijing, bargained successfully for cheaper bus fares than the drivers normally offered foreigners and after venturing through countryside and narrow streets, we were dropped off outside the township at the bottom of Huanghua. When we first got there, the place offered sights of green trees guarded by low-built red brick fences, crop-fields lying beyond, and more enticingly, silence everywhere. It was so quiet it was difficult to fathom. It was the first time I had experienced silence like that practically since leaving home and it was great. We walked along a road, the brick fences and houses on one side, while tall trees surrounded the crops on the other, with a few people watching Karl and I, the white guys, as we walked past.

“Y’know,” said Karl, “they’re just saying, ‘Look at those two handsome devils’.” I laughed and figured I’d try to at least make some sort of contact with them.

“Ni hao,” I said, offering a hello.

“Ah, ni hao,” they said back, looking at each other and giggling perhaps at the idea that a white guy spoke to them in Chinese.

Someone began letting off fireworks nearby. At first there were small rapid bursts reverberating around valleys, but then the big guns started, leaving vibration after vibration ringing through my ears. So much for the silence, I thought. Fireworks in the late morning seemed a little redundant on a sunny day.

The path leading up to the Wall was being used as a launch pad by the people sending the fireworks to the heavens, although they stopped lighting up long enough to let us pass, offering us greetings and reassuring smiles. Once we were around the corner, they let off more rockets that exploded right above our heads. The debris was even landing on us. It seems the only excuse for the fireworks celebration was Saturday morning cheer.

As the path came to an end on the other side of a bridge, a man sitting on a deck chair charged Y2 to walk on his land and guarded the way. Call me naïve, call me unworldly, call me a Kiwi, but I honestly didn’t realise we would come across someone charging us to use their land merely to walk on it. It seemed from the signs and the brandishing of his apparent weapon of choice, a garden fork, that all he did all day was sit there charging people to be granted access.

Miranda began bargaining with him and got him down to Y1 for each of us, which he was happy with, as were we. Further up the hill, we came across an older lady carrying a hoe of the garden variety, charging us surprise, surprise, Y2 to cross her land. Miranda to the fore again got her down to Y1 too. And then, finally, we got to the attraction, the main event. The Great Wall, in ruins.

The Great Wall at Huanghua is a non-regulated section of the Wall, still in ruins, unlike Badaling. The more authentic, more realistic, and a heck of a lot less crowded place was a more interesting section of the Wall to visit. When we walked up the steps onto the wall a man stood in front of us. My first thought was that he was going to lay claim to this part of the wall and charge us to walk on it but it turned out he was just selling regular touristy fare. And there we ate lunch, Karl giving some crappy chocolate to the guy selling the touristy stuff.

Again, Huanghua isn’t like Badaling and walking up the wall is quite tricky with loose tiling and piles of rubble all over the place. It made for an interesting and challenging climb. Without barriers on either side of the Wall, the three-metre drop to the ground seems much more threatening than it may actually be.

When we reached one of the Wall fortifications further up the hill, we Kiwis showed our naivety again. There was a ladder to the roof so Karl and I fired up the top to check out the view. Jan was about to join us when a lady came around the corner and went nuts. She started barking that it was, shock horror, Y2 to use her rickety old ladder. I didn't understand one word but apparently she was very rude to Jan and Miranda while Karl and I looked at each other and laughed. She had moved the ladder away from the wall in an attempt to trap us, so we couldn’t get back down.

Karl being slightly more of a man than I, decided to climb down the outside of the fort and onto the Wall proper while I went over to the ladder and paid. The lady came up, took my money and then realised Karl was gone. She ran around the fort, spotted him up the hill, flew down the ladder, and chased him, whomping stick in hand, up the hill. I fell over laughing while everyone else followed her, all in awe of how fast she bounded up the hill. An Australian and an Englishman even stopped for the show, remarking on her sprinting prowess.

A few minutes climb up the hill, Karl and this lady were toe-to-toe yelling at each other. Karl decided that since he only used the ladder once to climb up, he should only pay Y1 which the lady vehemently disagreed with. She pushed and shoved him, which considering the loose tiles and footing, seemed pretty dangerous. She then proved how much she cared about his safety by picking up a loose stone slab and throwing it at his feet. He skipped out of the way as it shattered into dust and crumbled rock. In the end, she accepted Y1 but was still pretty unhappy.

As we climbed, the lady followed us and called out to a young man further up the hill. Miranda translated for us that the lady was referring to him as her nephew.

He was standing guard at a fort on the summit and wanted people to pay another Y2 to go any further. He had a ladder in a place where it wasn't really needed but to get past the ladder would have to be moved. Considering my opinion of the family, I didn't want to risk touching it.

This family certainly had a monopoly on this part of the Wall. What would happen if someone made better ladders and competed with them for the all important tourist dollar? I wouldn't expect anything less than carnage.

At the summit, the views are spectacular. The Wall stretches in each direction, snaking its way along the ridges of the mountainside on two horizons. All the while we were there, the sun bore down and fireworks continued to boom around the valleys. Negotiating our way down the unstable wall, we managed to get all the way down without injury or argument. Karl kept dishing out the chocolate and the ladder-lady even accepted one as a peace offering.

It was a real experience, one earned and definitely more appreciable than the visit to the Great Wall at Badaling. Despite this, I had missed New Zealand playing a big rugby match. It wasn’t the first game I had ever missed but I did wonder if I should’ve stuck around in town to watch it. All day I wondered how the team had played, and was slightly preoccupied with my thoughts drifting back to New Zealand.

“Would you rather watch a game of rugby, or have lunch on the Great Wall of China?” Jan asked, as our rickety old bus drove along tiny lanes lined with trees and farmland, making its way back towards the city.